i am looking to lease a car for my daughter who is moving to LA. we like the rogue (my son drives an altima) and i checked on lease deal. i do NOT find the current 24 month $2999 down/ 229/mo lease deal attractive at all (would you pay $8500 to lease a $22K vehicle for 2 years?) A salesman from one of the dealerships called me and told me about a special deal they were running- he had about a dozen 08 AWD Rogues with 9-12K miles on them- that they would lease for 0 down, $189/mo for 60 month lease. On the surface, very attractive deal, near new $low 20's car you can drive for 5 yrs for under $12K... But i wonder, given the transmission problems i'm reading about- if these are a bunch of problem rogues the dealership is trying to dump on people. the warranty applies but it seems a long lease deal is a good way to bury the problem.... any thoughts?

With 9-12Kmiles on it, you will know if the car has this rattle problem or not. It seems when the car is over 5Kmiles and you don't have any problem with the transmission, you won't have it.

So, the best way is to testdrive it before leasing it. Read the thread on the rattle problem, you will learn how to drive the car to hear if it has the problem (low speed on decceleration seems to be the first sign of having it).

And as you said, after you still have the warranty. A good thing would be to take an extended warranty to cover the whole leasing period (one more year to get to the 5 year lease).